Michael Wolf has just released two new books, Asoue and Tokyo Compression, and I have to admit to having a personal favourite. Tokyo Compression brings together a series of images taken in the Tokyo metro during rush hour. Through a series of portraits of trapped commuters, compressed into jam-packed metal carriages, the book brings to life the claustrophobic hell of urban living at its most basic but also its most extreme. Tokyo Compression is beautifully printed on thick matte stock and Christian Schüle's blistering essay further drags you down into the bowels of the city. Leafing through the pages of this book, I couldn't help but hear the voice of Werner Herzog speaking about the Amazonian jungle. "I wouldn't see anything erotical here. I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and... growing and... just rotting away. Of course, there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us". Indeed.
Update: Book of the week is moving to eyecurious books etc. Look out for new picks there!
For those of you that will be in Paris next week, Wolf will be showing work from Asoue and Tokyo Compression at Paris Photo and at the Galerie Particulière.
